A poster that cuts to the chase

se1man

*applause*

Vulture

Keep it simple: a big pic of Bruin at his most gruesome/MAD/UGLY ( ie. any one will do) with the slogan

WE WANT OUR COUNTRY BACK. VOTE CONSERVATIVE.

annassasin

High risk, ****** reward. Will create a kerfuffle, see if Brown dares object.

David Ossitt

"Let's cut benefits for those who refuse work".

At first glance this looks to be fantastic but even now they are getting it all wrong, the wrong is in the word ‘cut’ the correct word would be ‘stop’.

Still it is a move in the right direction.

Paddy

Never mind too tough.

The Tories need to spell it out.

Paul Lockwood

This is always going to be a controversial issue. To be frank, Cameron's previous options were not working. It's make or break time. This sets out the stall nicely. Its 5 more years of welfare dependency and gloom or a fresh start and business's coming back to UK.

Snowman

That’s the first policy of Dave’s that warms me up by a notch. Why wait with it till now, few days before the polling day though? More to the point, he must stick to it whatever the ones whose name rhymes with dick say or do.

An idea for another sharp, clear message:

If you don’t have the right to stay here, we’ll buy you a ticket back home.

Michael Booth

Mmmmmmmmmmm the problems is, the refusers-to-work are as much a Labour client base as those in public sector employment. They also have a vote, and turkeys do not vote for Christmas...

luke

Been true since 1926 of course

Beer Moth

Now this is how I want my Tory leader to talk.

This has that feeling about it, of being part of a series. I hope so, and wait to see the one on immigration.

Doc Massie won't be liking this at all.

Nicholas Hallam

It may be a good idea to remind the recently converted Lib Dem voters what they used to want.

Timbo

We already do. If you refuse a job you can be ineligible for Jobseekers Allowance for 6 months.

Sterence

Michael Booth - how many of those people might have voted Conservative before this poster, do you think?

GDT

At last....Let's cut to the chase - spell it out - let people know exactly what is on the table - if people want honesty let's give it to them with both barrels.
If they elect lib/lab coalition then at least we can say "told u so!"

AngloWelshDragon

And let's reward people who do work instead of trapping them in a benefit/tax credit poverty trap like my friend who has taken the first job she was offered and is now £5 per week worse off than when she was on benefits. Because she is has pride and self respect she is going to carry on doing this job, caring for an elderly disabled lady. How many others would jack it in as not worth the effort?

Noa Zrk

David Ossitt has summarised it correctly, mealy mouthed but a step in the right direction.
Michael Booth - so the turkeys won't like it, but as they weren't ever going to vote Tory that won't lose a single vote from them anyway.

Rhys

Bit late to come out with the 2005 Manifesto now, isn't it ?

I mean: we've had the tree / huskies / lesbians / 40-Year-Old-Blackman hugging for four and a half years with zero mention of benefit queens / immigration / tough on crime : who's going to believe it now?
Cameron has zero, or less than zero credibility as a purveyor of traditional tough Tory policies - he wanted those old Tory messages totally forgotten and that is his single achievement.

kingfelix

If you are going to do a poster demonising people who 'refuse work' it might be a good idea not to include a man who barely knows the meaning of the word.

Informed Giant

agreed. let's stop' sounds better than lets cut

boulay

how about. "we will cap immigration" "we will cut government waste" "will will give you back your liberty" "we will get back powers from Europe" all are Tory policies, all are totally popular and the opposition parties will find it very hard to attack these sentiments.

ajs

Richard of York asleep?

TGF UKIP

Spot on, David Ossitt, but Dave really must be desperate if he's down to trying to look like a conservative of sorts.

Bet The Mekon didn't know anything about this.

Andrew K

Have we lost the plot completely

A bad campaign gets even worse (sigh)

Watt Tyler

I happen to be under the impression that most benefits are guaranteed under European Human Rights law, and claimants are eligible according to criteria that have nothing to do with work - sickness, low income ets. It is only the Job Seekers Allowance where a claimant becomes ineligible if he refuses work, and this already happens.

I happen to think that this is Daves "British Jobs for British Workers" moment. The impression that this ad gives is that Dave is going to cut all benefit entitlement, but I don't think that he can without taking on Europe.

I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong.

Stevie

Ricky Rest-Bite must be trembling in his short trousers at the thought of losing his benefits!

Watt Tyler

David Ossitt

I think that you have noticed the telling clue. If I am right, then they can't STOP benefits because it would contravene European Human Rights. They might be able to reduce them - i.e. cut them.

I think you lot are being spun and lied to again (and swallowing it). I don't think he can STOP benefits without taking on Europe.

adam

"LETS FREEZE PETROL TAX. PERMANENTLY."

Richard of York

it is after all government policy and has been for over 80 years except of course for a brief period in the 80's under a conservative government when there were no jobs and poverty was a real issue.

Woody

I thought at first it was too tough a message but on reflection no it's not. Being a working class conservative and still working even though I am past retirement age, as David Cameron in his speech today, nothing annoys me more than seeing all those curtains still closed when I leave for work at 7:00am.

Michael Booth

noa zrk and sterence, I take your point - but I think there are other issues to focus on that will win votes, that's all.

Holly ......

I hear several commentators saying the Conservatives need to 'spell out' their policies.
Paddy.5.44, You also say the Tories need to spell it out...as in
L E T 'S C U T B E N E F I T S F O R
T H O S E W H O R E F U S E W O R K.
Losing benefits starting with one month ending with three years.
I'm a girl & I know.
Fraudsters will be treated the same way.

Holly ......

Dick of Dork has probably been in a very important COBRA meeting trying to fix the screw up with the coaches.

Olaf Rye

Bravo ! It is about time that the Conservatives begin saying such things. Labour has dished out lots of money to congenitally indolent families, some into their fifth generation of dependency on the state and no intention of seeking any employment. Still, as another commentator sagaciously remarked, this might contravene their 'Human Rights' as interpreted by appointed magistrates in Europe. It is truly obscene that social policies, based on public largesse, are now regarded as 'rights'. Presumably, rights also come with some sort responsibility ? Perhaps I am just being old-fashioned ...

Jez

Eh?!!!

What the f*ck have they got against bin men/refuse collectors!!!

Scandalous!

2trueblue

Lets cut....
Apply it accross the board.

Roy Smith

More *applause*

sonic

Nice idea, only one little problem, no jobs.

Go have a look at the jobs section of your local paper and see why this idea is as laughable as the "big society"

Sonic

Satired to death already

http://tankthetories.com/

Noa Zrk

It's no surprise that such a simple statement of basic conservatism should open the Pandora's box of progressive liberal repression.

It captures all the issues that have driven the UK society to the very edge of reason and bankruptcy: the supine acquiescence of Parliamentary supremacy to the EU, the creation and maintenance of a vast and non productive dependent client voter base augmented by a constant flow of peasant immigrants to undermine the indigenous population, the debauchery of moral positivism and certainties to destroy the philosophical foundations of democratic society...

I could go on, but the reality is that the challenge raised by the word "stop", as opposed to "cut", is to unpick the whole rotten socialist infrastructure created in the past 13 years.

Wilhelm

How about this

Lets cut Foreign Aid.

Zoo keeper (Elephant House)

Noa Zrk 10:28 pm

In a nutshell.

Hysteria

it's way too late for a sudden lurch to the right. The public should have been hearing serious economic realities for months now.

We know that an election cannot be won on a right wing platform - this smacks of desperation.

We are fckud

Ron Todd

I get up every morning to go to a job I hate and end up with very little left after I have paid the rent. I walk past council houses much nicer than the dump I rent, full of people with no intention of working who have huge tellys on in every room a car or more than one on the drive (I don't even have a drive) and judging by the boxes full of cans and bottles left out on collection day no need for the reality of sobriety to trouble them over much.

So I can look at the poster and think 'yes why should I be paying for those f...'

But then I work for a small company that has suffered from the recession and cannot get any money from the banks and as I get older getting another job after each redundancy gets harder. So I also think that could be me soon.

Robert

It's a pity because I'm paraplegic with serious complications, I'm desperate to work in a real job, not the jobs I've been getting. working on IT was one job I had, I know nothing about IT at all, but was given the job six weeks contract, the company did not even connect up the computer, I spent six weeks sitting behind a desk, the company told me it was part of it's civic duty.

Then I was sent to clean up a car park, picking up litter from a wheelchair, I did this for three weeks in the rain and cold, I had a cold stayed home for three days, they did not even know I was off, or did not care.

Every job I get is very short term contracts, the jobs are not real for example I'm not asked to do anything or actually get a job to do. People say things like ah well the company has a moral duty to employ cripples.

Even the Job center does it, they were looking for a employment advisor which I'm trained to do, I lost the job they stated, because I would not be able to stand the pressure due to being disabled, which in Labours new PC world is illegal.

In 2 years I've filled out well over 1,000 job applications, and I've had three replies none of them positive.

What more do people want me to do, all the pressure is placed on my self to find work, none is placed on the company to employ me.

Did you know Parliament and the house of Lords only employ 1.75% of people with a disability that's shockingly low

Osred

A better poster would have been in big letters LETS CUT BENEFITS FOR and then list all the crap we do pay for in smaller letters so you have a long string of text instead just the workshy. Ive got a big list but unfortunately it is not postable as some of them - while costing us £100s millions - involve foreign people and those resident abroad (including those who've never been resident here). I'd also add the benefit of NHS access which, in my experience is virtually unrestricted in London.

Well - I can always dream.

Noa Zrk

For number 2 in the series try:

"No NHS treatment without NI contributions or insurance".

Alexander Pelling

Too much, too late.

Noa Zrk

Ron Todd/Robert.

Your two posts which exemplify precisely what is wrong with the present benefits system. It encourages the workshy and imprudent and discourages those of our fellow citizens and people who understand and respect the terms of the social contract under which help to those in need should be provided.

Linda Payne

Expect to have benefits stopped-on them because basically I'm bonkers. You'll be pleased to know that I'll be willing to take on any crap job so I'm not totally reliant on my long suffering husband. Thing is chaps, most employers won't take on those with mental health problems-fact. Too old to sell my body and no one has yet discovered my creative poetic genius and guess what! I don't know how the economy works, do you?

By the way before my breakdown I used to be a qualified nurse, thought I'd add that little bit in